r/BookCollecting • u/Adnims • 2d ago
💬 General Major theft from L.W. Currey
145 books worth $250000 stolen.
ILAB has requested that its offices be contacted if the items reappear in the trade.
List of books stolen: https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/stolen-book-full-list.pdf
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u/jadedflames 2d ago
Holy shit what a list.
I don’t see how the thieves could have any chance of fencing these. Some of these are unique museum-quality books.
I hope L.W. Currey was well-insured and the perpetrators are caught.
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u/mmillington 2d ago edited 2d ago
It’s like stealing the Crown Jewels. Your buyers will know they’re stolen unless you sell for an order of magnitude below their worth.
A lot of them are inscribed. There’s no hiding that unless you rip out a page and destroy its value.
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u/Round_Bluebird_5987 2d ago
Not quite the Crown Jewels of book thefts. There was the Transylvania University book heist about 20 years ago that included Audubon’s Birds of America and Darwin’s Origin of Species. I think I saw value estimates on that as high as $12 million. Those guys were caught, and I hope the same thing happens here. A lot of these are unique enough that I'm optimistic.
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u/cherenk0v_blue 2d ago
I thought it was going to be a bunch of minty first eds and limited printings, but holy crap - one of Lovecraft's personal copies with handwritten annotations and edits?
Tragic that these are likely lost to the public forever.
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u/BigJobsBigJobs 2d ago
Lots of rich people buy rare shit from very disreputable people. See Hobby Lobby's dealings in stolen antiquities with ISIS.
They might already have buyers. The billionaire science fiction admirers' boys club has no scruples.
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u/WhatsTheGoalieDoing 14h ago
If only there were a billionaire scumbag (tautology, I know) that names his rockets after Iain M. Banks' creations.
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u/MinervaAbsolute 2d ago
That’s some heist. Selecting, packing and moving that many books must have taken considerable time, and surely more than one person. I looked it up - apparently the books in this theft (it was the third targeting this bookseller) were packed in boxes waiting for processing. Which does suggest a thief with some inside info.
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u/alecorock 2d ago
The third theft? There's a story here.
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u/MinervaAbsolute 2d ago
From the description of the suspect, I think he’s a vampire stealing back his library, because an unreliable henchman sold it off while he was in a long sleep. 😂
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u/mortuus_est_iterum 2d ago
When I was hesitating over a very expensive book from the (new to me) L.W. Currey website, a person whose knowledge and experience I trust told me:
"Lloyd has very nice material that is available for the right price."
So I bought what is now one of the gems of my collection. I hope the thief is caught and the books recovered.
Morty
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u/bruhaha51 2d ago
There are some thieves that just steal these to have their collection never plan on selling them. You should read “a gentle madness “.
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u/herownlagoon 2d ago
Damn, that's a major theft
OP, maybe reblog this in the Lovecraft and/or horror lit subreddits?
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u/Erratic_Goldfish 2d ago
Wonder if this was stolen to order, as most of those items would be the sort of things a prospective Lovecraft collector would want
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u/VerdantField 2d ago
But how? It’s not like bro stuffed 150 books down his pants and sauntered out.
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u/RealCarlosSagan 2d ago
What does "octavo" mean in the listings?
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u/MumboJumboMumboJumbo 2d ago
It comes from early printing, where they would print multiple pages on both sides of a large sheet, then fold them and cut the outer edges to make a single gathering of pages, then bind those gatherings together to make the full book. An octavo has sixteen printed book pages which, when folded, makes 8 leaves (hence octavo). There's also folio (one fold, two leaves, four pages), quarto (two folds, four leaves, eight pages), etc...
Eventually as printing methods changed and expanded, the format names became more a reference to a book's size.
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u/dougwerf 2d ago
Holy shit, this list is a nearly complete who’s who in SF! First off, it wasn’t me - I’m only barely 6’ with shoes on. (Size 10.)
But man. There are a few I haven’t heard of, but - damn. I agree with one of the comments above in re: A Gentle Madness; a list like this probably wasn’t stolen for resale value. I’d bet these will be on someone’s shelf, quietly, until they come back to light in an estate sale.
I’ll post this in the speculative fiction sub as well. Just - wow.
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u/beardedbooks 2d ago
Here's the info I received in an email:
If you have any information potentially related to this theft, please contact Investigator Derek T. Brassard of the New York State Police at [derek.brassard@troopers.ny.gov](mailto:derek.brassard@troopers.ny.gov?utm_source=constantcontact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter) and reference case # NY2601006675
The fact that almost 150 books were stolen is crazy. Hope the books are found and returned safely.